My nephew was deployed to Iraq almost two weeks ago, exactly one week before he was supposed to get out of the Air Force. He is a 1st lieutenant, and I think he basically pushes paper all day. He called my sister (his mom) yesterday and said that since Saddam’s trial is going to be held there, they’ve started walking around in full body armor all the time. He emailed the rest of the family last week to tell us all he was alive and doing well. (Whew!)
This made me giggle:
He also sent out a link to Camp Victory, a photo website showing some of the soldiers and places in Iraq. It’s kind of cool. Just thought I would share.
This part of the email freaked me out a little, but I’m guessing it’s just what happens on a day to day basis.
It scares me to think of my goofball little nephew hanging out while mortars are ringing through the sky. But then again, I guess it’s kind of what he signed up for when he went into the military. I’m sure I’ll post more interesting stuff when he emails again. Also, if anyone has any cool ideas of things I can send to him (the first thing I’ve packed is a journal so that he can write all this down), I’d appreciate it. I have the standard list of things that soldiers would like, but I can’t think of anything cool/not forbidden to send him.
Well, I hope of course that he doesn’t get hurt.
I also don’t want to make this reply an anti-Iraq-invasion one, since this is not the forum to post.
But maybe you could tell him that this Middle Eastern Arab feels personally insulted when reading about a US soldier who talks about Iraqis as “the enemy”. The US soldiers invaded the country of the people who fight them in an attempt to drive them out. The US soldiers are the enemy for these people who are in their own country.
A little bit of tact and respect for the people who’s country it is you are keeping under occupational control can do no harm. Maybe thinking about a situation where the Iraqis would be in the USA in the same position as he is overthere would help.
I also find the idea of locating US soldiers in former Saddam palaces not exactly a very tactful move, and not only because the Iraqi people themselves should decide what to do with these locations. Of course that is not the decision made by your nephew, so I can hardly hold it against him that he got located there. Hence I would say to him: take a swim yet while doing it also try to think about Iraqis who don’t even have decent clean drinking water because of the destruction in their country.
I send care packages to friends and family all the time, and my ‘generic’ one starts out:
the small travel pack size of: wet ones, the toothcare kit[travel toothbrush, small toothpaste, small dental floss] baby size gold bond or baby powder, antiperspirant, bandaids. Travel size because they can slide into a BDU pocket, and small sizes prevent contamination problems because they get used up so fast, and the baby wipes for ahem sanitary reasons. I also include refresh brand eye drops to keep the eyes happy - they come in one use thingys, so they can hand them out to their buddies. Saline nose drops to keep the sinuses happy. nonalcoholic hand sanitizer. qtips for cleaning into small nooks and crannies of bodies or equipment=)
Then I customize - I like to send the single serving packets of jerky, trail mix, assorted different types of nuts [like pumpkorn in different flavors, regular and honey roast peanuts, smoked almonds and regular almonsd…] and bags of different hard candies - like Mike really likes root beer barrels, so he gets those in addition to the lifesavers hard candies [orange and strawberry creamsavers since I know he likes those] I also throw in a box of pudding tubes [the ones that dont need refrigeration] and since I know he is a reader, I have been sending him the discworld series more or less in order=) as well as throwing in a random sf/fantasy book to pass around. If I dont know someones tastes as well as i know Mikes, I will default to a generic hard candy like jolly ranchers, mixed candies [the ones with butterscotch, mint and cinnnamon hard candies, i think Brachts makes it] and general books [i go to the library and pick up from the swap box, i get mysteries, westerns, biographies, humor - whatever looks remotely interesting] and for everybody I throw in the current copy of newsweek, time and people.
I think I spend about $50 - $75 per care package, and have a list of about 20 people I cycle through ao I do 2 each pay period [4 a month] and I write lots of postcards and letters=)
He called my sister (his mom) yesterday and said that since Saddam’s trial is going to be held there, they’ve started walking around in full body armor all the time. He emailed the rest of the family last week to tell us all he was alive and doing well. (Whew!)